A Near-Perfect AMC Western Still Outshines Yellowstone

Taylor Sheridan's Yellowstone helped repopularize the Western for streaming audiences with a modern-day setting and sweeping vistas, but its scope is narrower than an earlier AMC drama. Hell on Wheels premiered seven years before the Dutton ranch first appeared, offering a sprawling historical take on the era around the transcontinental railroad.

The show hooked viewers from its first season with Cullen Bohannon, played by Anson Mount. A former Confederate soldier turned railroad foreman bent on avenging his murdered wife and son, Bohannon exemplifies the classic Western antihero, supported by a talented ensemble including Dominique McElligott, Colm Meaney and Common.

Hell on Wheels pairs action with a wide-ranging examination of the railroad's furious westward expansion, tackling complex social and political subjects while maintaining gripping drama.

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